As chairman of the board for newly formed Vision USA,
Mr. Weiss aims to raise $300 million over the next 10 years for
aggressive church planting in 50 of the country's most influential
cities. The project is well underway in Orlando, where several million
dollars of grant money will help open eight to 10 churches by the end
of the year. Preliminary efforts have also begun in Seattle,
Sacramento, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Nashville, Charlotte, New
York, and Washington, D.C.

[...]

Vision USA's basic model for each urban market is simple: Network
Christian business leaders with local church-planting experts. Chan
Kilgore, pastor of CrossPointe Church in Orlando, has helped locate and
train doctrinally conservative pastors. "Our greatest challenge isn't
the financial resources. It's finding great men to plant," he told
WORLD.

To solve that problem, Mr. Weiss aims to build a large
church-planter training facility on 40 acres of donated property in
Orlando. Gregg Heinsch, an experienced church planter and former youth
pastor at John Piper's Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, will
serve as training-center dean.

Each church founded on Vision USA funds must pour 5
percent of its budget back into the project for further local planting
efforts. Vision USA president Steve Johnson believes such give-back
commitments will create self-sustaining, church-planting networks
throughout the country. "This is not a bureaucracy where it's top
down," he told WORLD. "We're just trying to empower local movements."

Though affiliated with the Baptist General Conference
(BGC), Vision USA has partnered with a range of denominations willing
to affirm the Lausanne Covenant, male eldership, and Reformed
theology—most recently aligning with Redeemer Presbyterian Church in
New York City.

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle and
founder of the nondenominational Acts 29 church-planting network, is
among a growing list of prominent leaders to join Vision USA, each
hoping to combat the roughly 2,500 church deaths in the United States
every year. "Church planting is hot right now," he told WORLD. "For
years, guys wanted to get out of seminary and go get a church that had
a nice salary and would call them pastor. Today, young entrepreneurial
guys don't want to take over a church. They want to start one."